Foreign Affairs
Amid growing Indian concerns over Chinese influence in Nepal after CPN Maoist Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda returned to power in Nepal, a top Indian diplomat will arrive in Nepal next week to discuss a range bilateral issues.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra will be on an official visit to Nepal on February 13 and 14 at the invitation of Nepali Foreign Secretary Bharat Raj Paudyal, the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu said in a statement.
“This will be the first stand-alone visit of the Foreign Secretary to Nepal since he assumed charge,” it added.
Kwatra’s visit will come days after two senior US officials arrived in Kathmandu separately for bilateral consultations. The senior Indian diplomat is expected to lay groundwork for the first Delhi visit of Prime Minister Prachanda, who came to power leading a multi-party coalition following the November 2022 general election.
Several Indian analysts have voiced concerns that Prachanda, being a communist leader, and his ally, CPN-UML Chair KP Sharma Oli, might get closer to Beijing at the expense of Nepal’s relations with Delhi. But the former Maoist rebel leader has maintained that Nepal would maintain equal relations with both giant neighbours.
Foreign Secretary Kwatra is considered to be well-versed and up-to-date on Nepal-Indian relations, because he served in Kathmandu for two years as an Indian ambassador before his appointment as Foreign Secretary.
“The visit is in keeping with the tradition of regular high-level exchanges between the two countries and the priority India attaches to its relations with Nepal under its ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy,” the Embassy said in a statement.
During Kwatra’s visit, the two foreign secretaries will hold discussions on “the entire range of multifaceted cooperation between India and Nepal”, it added. Stating that “the bilateral cooperation between the two countries has strengthened in the recent years, with several major infrastructure and cross-border connectivity projects completed with India’s assistance.”
Kwatra’s visit, it added, will be “an opportunity to further advance our bilateral ties”.
As with India, Nepal has struggled to maintain good relations with its northern neighbour, China, and distant powers such as the US, the UK and the EU, besides countries in the Middle East and East Asia, to name a few.
Just like India, China and other powers too have been extending economic and development aid to Nepal. Earlier this year, a Chinese technical team visited Nepal to carry out a feasibility study of the ambitious China-Nepal railway connectivity.
That, once developed, would see high-speed trains hurtling through tunnels into Kathmandu from the Tibetan border.
China has been extending support for Nepali projects related to air and road connectivity too, after the Himalayan nation agreed to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In the months leading to November 2022 elections, several senior Chinese officials visited Nepal, indirectly nudging communist leaders to reunite again.
But even before the western and eastern powers such as the UK, the EU, Japan and South Korea and others started forging development partnerships with Nepal, the United States became a trailblazer in the 1950s when the USAID started its operations in the country.
